Agamemnon by Aeschylus
A >>
Aeschylus >> Agamemnon
To the yoke of Must-Be he bowed him slowly,
And a strange wind within his bosom tossed,
A wind of dark thought, unclean, unholy;
And he rose up, daring to the uttermost.
For men are boldened by a Blindness, straying
Toward base desire, which brings grief hereafter,
Yea, and itself is grief;
So this man hardened to his own child's slaying,
As help to avenge him for a woman's laughter
And bring his ships relief!
Her "Father, Father," her sad cry that lingered,
Her virgin heart's breath they held all as naught,
Those bronze-clad witnesses and battle-hungered;
And there they prayed, and when the prayer was wrought
He charged the young men to uplift and bind her,
As ye lift a wild kid, high above the altar,
Fierce-huddling forward, fallen, clinging sore
To the robe that wrapt her; yea, he bids them hinder
The sweet mouth's utterance, the cries that falter,
--His curse for evermore!--
With violence and a curb's voiceless wrath.
Her stole of saffron then to the ground she threw,
And her eye with an arrow of pity found its path
To each man's heart that slew:
A face in a picture, striving amazedly;
The little maid who danced at her father's board,
The innocent voice man's love came never nigh,
Who joined to his her little paean-cry
When the third cup was poured....
What came thereafter I saw not neither tell.
But the craft of Calchas failed not.--'Tis written, He
Who Suffereth Shall Learn; the law holdeth well.
And that which is to be,
Ye will know at last; why weep before the hour?
For come it shall, as out of darkness dawn.
Only may good from all this evil flower;
So prays this Heart of Argos, this frail tower
Guarding the land alone.
[_As they cease,_ CLYTEMNESTRA _comes from the Palace with Attendants.
She has finished her prayer and sacrifice, and is now wrought up to face
the meeting with her husband. The Leader approaches her_.
LEADER.
Before thy state, O Queen, I bow mine eyes.
'Tis written, when the man's throne empty lies,
The woman shall be honoured.--Hast thou heard
Some tiding sure? Or is it Hope, hath stirred
To fire these altars? Dearly though we seek
To learn, 'tis thine to speak or not to speak.
CLYTEMNESTRA.
Glad-voiced, the old saw telleth, comes this morn,
The Star-child of a dancing midnight born,
And beareth to thine ear a word of joy
Beyond all hope: the Greek hath taken Troy.
LEADER.
How?
Thy word flies past me, being incredible.
CLYTEMNESTRA.
Ilion is ours. No riddling tale I tell.
LEADER.
Such joy comes knocking at the gate of tears.
CLYTEMNESTRA.
Aye, 'tis a faithful heart that eye declares.
LEADER.
What warrant hast thou? Is there proof of this?
CLYTEMNESTRA.
There is; unless a God hath lied there is.
LEADER.
Some dream-shape came to thee in speaking guise?
CLYTEMNESTRA.
Who deemeth me a dupe of drowsing eyes?
LEADER.
Some word within that hovereth without wings?
CLYTEMNESTRA.
Am I a child to hearken to such things?
LEADER.
Troy fallen?--But how long? When fell she, say?
CLYTEMNESTRA.
The very night that mothered this new day.
LEADER.
And who of heralds with such fury came?
CLYTEMNESTRA.
A Fire-god, from Mount Ida scattering flame.
Whence starting, beacon after beacon burst
In flaming message hitherward. Ida first
Told Hermes' Lemnian Rock, whose answering sign
Was caught by towering Athos, the divine,
With pines immense--yea, fishes of the night
Swam skyward, drunken with that leaping light,
Which swelled like some strange sun, till dim and far
Makistos' watchmen marked a glimmering star;
They, nowise loath nor idly slumber-won,
Spring up to hurl the fiery message on,
And a far light beyond the Euripus tells
That word hath reached Messapion's sentinels.
They beaconed back, then onward with a high
Heap of dead heather flaming to the sky.
And onward still, not failing nor aswoon,
Across the Asopus like a beaming moon
The great word leapt, and on Kithairon's height
Uproused a new relay of racing light.
His watchers knew the wandering flame, nor hid
Their welcome, burning higher than was bid.
Out over Lake Gorgopis then it floats,
To Aigiplanctos, waking the wild goats,
Crying for "Fire, more Fire!" And fire was reared,
Stintless and high, a stormy streaming beard,
That waved in flame beyond the promontory
Rock-ridged, that watches the Saronian sea,
Kindling the night: then one short swoop to catch
The Spider's Crag, our city's tower of watch;
Whence hither to the Atreidae's roof it came,
A light true-fathered of Idaean flame.
Torch-bearer after torch-bearer, behold
The tale thereof in stations manifold,
Each one by each made perfect ere it passed,
And Victory in the first as in the last.
These be my proofs and tokens that my lord
From Troy hath spoke to me a burning word.
LEADER.
Woman, speak on. Hereafter shall my prayer
Be raised to God; now let me only hear,
Again and full, the marvel and the joy.
CLYTEMNESTRA.
Now, even now, the Achaian holdeth Troy!
Methinks there is a crying in her streets
That makes no concord. When sweet unguent meets
With vinegar in one phial, I warrant none
Shall lay those wranglers lovingly at one.
So conquerors and conquered shalt thou hear,
Two sundered tones, two lives of joy or fear.
Here women in the dust about their slain,
Husbands or brethren, and by dead old men
Pale children who shall never more be free,
For all they loved on earth cry desolately.
And hard beside them war-stained Greeks, whom stark
Battle and then long searching through the dark
Hath gathered, ravenous, in the dawn, to feast
At last on all the plenty Troy possessed,
No portion in that feast nor ordinance,
But each man clutching at the prize of chance.
Aye, there at last under good roofs they lie
Of men spear-quelled, no frosts beneath the sky,
No watches more, no bitter moony dew....
How blessed they will sleep the whole night through!
Oh, if these days they keep them free from sin
Toward Ilion's conquered shrines and Them within
Who watch unconquered, maybe not again
The smiter shall be smit, the taker ta'en.
May God but grant there fall not on that host
The greed of gold that maddeneth and the lust
To spoil inviolate things! But half the race
Is run which windeth back to home and peace.
Yea, though of God they pass unchallenged,
Methinks the wound of all those desolate dead
Might waken, groping for its will....
Ye hear
A woman's word, belike a woman's fear.
May good but conquer in the last incline
Of the balance! Of all prayers that prayer is mine.
LEADER.
O Woman, like a man faithful and wise
Thou speakest. I accept thy testimonies
And turn to God with praising, for a gain
Is won this day that pays for all our pain.
[CLYTEMNESTRA _returns to the Palace. The_ CHORUS _take up their
position for the Second Stasimon._
AN ELDER.
0 Zeus, All-ruler, and Night the Aid,
Gainer of glories, and hast thou thrown
Over the towers of Ilion
Thy net close-laid,
That none so nimble and none so tall
Shall escape withal
The snare of the slaver that claspeth all?
ANOTHER.
And Zeus the Watcher of Friend and Friend
I also praise, who hath wrought this end.
Long since on Paris his shaft he drew,
And hath aimed true,
Not too soon falling nor yet too far,
The fire of the avenging star.
CHORUS.
(_This is God's judgement upon Troy. May it not be too fierce! Gold cannot
save one who spurneth Justice_.)
The stroke of Zeus hath found them! Clear this day
The tale, and plain to trace.
He judged, and Troy hath fallen.--And have men said
That God not deigns to mark man's hardihead,
Trampling to earth the grace
Of holy and delicate things?--Sin lies that way.
For visibly Pride doth breed its own return
On prideful men, who, when their houses swell
With happy wealth, breathe ever wrath and blood.
Yet not too fierce let the due vengeance burn;
Only as deemeth well
One wise of mood.
Never shall state nor gold
Shelter his heart from aching
Whoso the Altar of Justice old
Spurneth to Night unwaking.
(_The Sinner suffers in his longing till at last Temptation overcomes him;
as longing for Helen overcame Paris._)
The tempting of misery forceth him, the dread
Child of fore-scheming Woe!
And help is vain; the fell desire within
Is veiled not, but shineth bright like Sin:
And as false gold will show
Black where the touchstone trieth, so doth fade
His honour in God's ordeal. Like a child,
Forgetting all, he hath chased his winged bird,
And planted amid his people a sharp thorn.
And no God hears his prayer, or, have they heard,
The man so base-beguiled
They cast to scorn.
Paris to Argos came;
Love of a woman led him;
So God's altar he brought to shame,
Robbing the hand that fed him.
(_Helen's flight; the visions seen by the King's seers; the phantom of
Helen and the King's grief._)
She hath left among her people a noise of shield and sword,
A tramp of men armed where the long ships are moored;
She hath ta'en in her goings Desolation as a dower;
She hath stept, stept quickly, through the great gated Tower,
And the thing that could not be, it hath been!
And the Seers they saw visions, and they spoke of strange ill:
"A Palace, a Palace; and a great King thereof:
A bed, a bed empty, that was once pressed in love:
And thou, thou, what art thou? Let us be, thou so still,
Beyond wrath, beyond beseeching, to the lips reft of thee!"
For she whom he desireth is beyond the deep sea,
And a ghost in his castle shall be queen.
Images in sweet guise
Carven shall move him never,
Where is Love amid empty eyes?
Gone, gone for ever!
(_His dreams and his suffering; but the War that he made caused greater
and wider suffering._)
But a shape that is a dream, 'mid the phantoms of the night,
Cometh near, full of tears, bringing vain vain delight:
For in vain when, desiring, he can feel the joy's breath
--Nevermore! Nevermore!--from his arms it vanisheth,
On wings down the pathways of sleep.
In the mid castle hall, on the hearthstone of the Kings,
These griefs there be, and griefs passing these,
But in each man's dwelling of the host that sailed the seas,
A sad woman waits; she has thoughts of many things,
And patience in her heart lieth deep.
Knoweth she them she sent,
Knoweth she? Lo, returning,
Comes in stead of the man that went
Armour and dust of burning.
(_The return of the funeral urns; the murmurs of the People._)
And the gold-changer, Ares, who changeth quick for dead,
Who poiseth his scale in the striving of the spears,
Back from Troy sendeth dust, heavy dust, wet with tears,
Sendeth ashes with men's names in his urns neatly spread.
And they weep over the men, and they praise them one by one,
How this was a wise fighter, and this nobly-slain--
"Fighting to win back another's wife!"
Till a murmur is begun,
And there steals an angry pain
Against Kings too forward in the strife.
There by Ilion's gate
Many a soldier sleepeth,
Young men beautiful; fast in hate
Troy her conqueror keepeth.
(_For the Shedder of Blood is in great peril, and not unmarked by God. May
I never be a Sacker of Cities!_)
But the rumour of the People, it is heavy, it is chill;
And tho' no curse be spoken, like a curse doth it brood;
And my heart waits some tiding which the dark holdeth still,
For of God not unmarked is the shedder of much blood.
And who conquers beyond right ... Lo, the life of man decays;
There be Watchers dim his light in the wasting of the years;
He falls, he is forgotten, and hope dies.
There is peril in the praise
Over-praised that he hears;
For the thunder it is hurled from God's eyes.
Glory that breedeth strife,
Pride of the Sacker of Cities;
Yea, and the conquered captive's life,
Spare me, O God of Pities!
DIVERS ELDERS.
--The fire of good tidings it hath sped the city through,
But who knows if a god mocketh? Or who knows if all be true?
'Twere the fashion of a child,
Or a brain dream-beguiled,
To be kindled by the first
Torch's message as it burst,
And thereafter, as it dies, to die too.
--'Tis like a woman's sceptre, to ordain
Welcome to joy before the end is plain!
--Too lightly opened are a woman's ears;
Her fence downtrod by many trespassers,
And quickly crossed; but quickly lost
The burden of a woman's hopes or fears.
[_Here a break occurs in the action, like the descent of the curtain in a
modern theatre. A space of some days is assumed to have passed and we find
the Elders again assembled_.
LEADER.
Soon surely shall we read the message right;
Were fire and beacon-call and lamps of light
True speakers, or but happy lights, that seem
And are not, like sweet voices in a dream.
I see a Herald yonder by the shore,
Shadowed with olive sprays. And from his sore
Rent raiment cries a witness from afar,
Dry Dust, born brother to the Mire of war,
That mute he comes not, neither through the smoke
Of mountain forests shall his tale be spoke;
But either shouting for a joyful day,
Or else.... But other thoughts I cast away.
As good hath dawned, may good shine on, we pray!
--And whoso for this City prayeth aught
Else, let him reap the harvest of his thought!
[_Enter the_ HERALD, _running. His garments are torn and war-stained. He
falls upon his knees and kisses the Earth, and salutes each Altar in
turn._
HERALD.
Land of my fathers! Argos! Am I here ...
Home, home at this tenth shining of the year,
And all Hope's anchors broken save this one!
For scarcely dared I dream, here in mine own
Argos at last to fold me to my rest....
But now--All Hail, O Earth! O Sunlight blest!
And Zeus Most High!
[_Checking himself as he sees the altar of Apollo._
And thou, O Pythian Lord;
No more on us be thy swift arrows poured!
Beside Scamander well we learned how true
Thy hate is. Oh, as thou art Healer too,
Heal us! As thou art Saviour of the Lost,
Save also us, Apollo, being so tossed
With tempest! ... All ye Daemons of the Pale!
And Hermes! Hermes, mine own guardian, hail!
Herald beloved, to whom all heralds bow....
Ye Blessed Dead that sent us, receive now
In love your children whom the spear hath spared.
O House of Kings, O roof-tree thrice-endeared,
O solemn thrones! O gods that face the sun!
Now, now, if ever in the days foregone,
After these many years, with eyes that burn,
Give hail and glory to your King's return!
For Agamemnon cometh! A great light
Cometh to men and gods out of the night.
Grand greeting give him--aye, it need be grand--
Who, God's avenging mattock in his hand,
Hath wrecked Troy's towers and digged her soil beneath,
Till her gods' houses, they are things of death;
Her altars waste, and blasted every seed
Whence life might rise! So perfect is his deed,
So dire the yoke on Ilion he hath cast,
The first Atreides, King of Kings at last,
And happy among men! To whom we give
Honour most high above all things that live.
For Paris nor his guilty land can score
The deed they wrought above the pain they bore.
"Spoiler and thief," he heard God's judgement pass;
Whereby he lost his plunder, and like grass
Mowed down his father's house and all his land;
And Troy pays twofold for the sin she planned.
LEADER.
Be glad, thou Herald of the Greek from Troy!
HERALD.
So glad, I am ready, if God will, to die!
LEADER.
Did love of this land work thee such distress?
HERALD.
The tears stand in mine eyes for happiness.
LEADER.
Sweet sorrow was it, then, that on you fell.
HERALD.
How sweet? I cannot read thy parable.
LEADER.
To pine again for them that loved you true.
HERALD.
Did ye then pine for us, as we for you?
LEADER.
The whole land's heart was dark, and groaned for thee.
HERALD.
Dark? For what cause? Why should such darkness be?
LEADER.
Silence in wrong is our best medicine here.
HERALD.
Your kings were gone. What others need you fear?
LEADER.
'Tis past! Like thee now, I could gladly die.
HERALD.
Even so! 'Tis past, and all is victory.
And, for our life in those long years, there were
Doubtless some grievous days, and some were fair.
Who but a god goes woundless all his way?....
Oh, could I tell the sick toil of the day,
The evil nights, scant decks ill-blanketed;
The rage and cursing when our daily bread
Came not! And then on land 'twas worse than all.
Our quarters close beneath the enemy's wall;
And rain--and from the ground the river dew--Wet,
always wet! Into our clothes it grew,
Plague-like, and bred foul beasts in every hair.
Would I could tell how ghastly midwinter
Stole down from Ida till the birds dropped dead!
Or the still heat, when on his noonday bed
The breathless blue sea sank without a wave!....
Why think of it? They are past and in the grave,
All those long troubles. For I think the slain
Care little if they sleep or rise again;
And we, the living, wherefore should we ache
With counting all our lost ones, till we wake
The old malignant fortunes? If Good-bye
Comes from their side, Why, let them go, say I.
Surely for us, who live, good doth prevail
Unchallenged, with no wavering of the scale;
Wherefore we vaunt unto these shining skies,
As wide o'er sea and land our glory flies:
"By men of Argolis who conquered Troy,
These spoils, a memory and an ancient joy,
Are nailed in the gods' houses throughout Greece."
Which whoso readeth shall with praise increase
Our land, our kings, and God's grace manifold
Which made these marvels be.--My tale is told.
LEADER.
Indeed thou conquerest me. Men say, the light
In old men's eyes yet serves to learn aright.
But Clytemnestra and the House should hear
These tidings first, though I their health may share.
[_During the last words_ CLYTEMNESTRA _has entered from the Palace_.
CLYTEMNESTRA.
Long since I lifted up my voice in joy,
When the first messenger from flaming Troy
Spake through the dark of sack and overthrow.
And mockers chid me: "Because beacons show
On the hills, must Troy be fallen? Quickly born
Are women's hopes!" Aye, many did me scorn;
Yet gave I sacrifice; and by my word
Through all the city our woman's cry was heard,
Lifted in blessing round the seats of God,
And slumbrous incense o'er the altars glowed
In fragrance.
And for thee, what need to tell
Thy further tale? My lord himself shall well
Instruct me. Yet, to give my lord and king
All reverent greeting at his homecoming--
What dearer dawn on woman's eyes can flame
Than this, which casteth wide her gate to acclaim
The husband whom God leadeth safe from war?--
Go, bear my lord this prayer: That fast and far
He haste him to this town which loves his name;
And in his castle may he find the same
Wife that he left, a watchdog of the hall,
True to one voice and fierce to others all;
A body and soul unchanged, no seal of his
Broke in the waiting years.--No thought of ease
Nor joy from other men hath touched my soul,
Nor shall touch, until bronze be dyed like wool.
A boast so faithful and so plain, I wot,
Spoke by a royal Queen doth shame her not.
[_Exit_ CLYTEMNESTRA.
LEADER.
Let thine ear mark her message. 'Tis of fair
Seeming, and craves a clear interpreter....
But, Herald, I would ask thee; tell me true
Of Menelaus. Shall he come with you,
Our land's beloved crown, untouched of ill?
HERALD.
I know not how to speak false words of weal
For friends to reap thereof a harvest true.
LEADER.
Canst speak of truth with comfort joined? Those two
Once parted, 'tis a gulf not lightly crossed.
HERALD.
Your king is vanished from the Achaian host,
He and his ship! Such comfort have I brought.
LEADER.
Sailed he alone from Troy? Or was he caught
By storms in the midst of you, and swept away?
HERALD.
Thou hast hit the truth; good marksman, as men say!
And long to suffer is but brief to tell.
LEADER.
How ran the sailors' talk? Did there prevail
One rumour, showing him alive or dead?
HERALD.
None knoweth, none hath tiding, save the head
Of Helios, ward and watcher of the world.
LEADER.
Then tell us of the storm. How, when God hurled
His anger, did it rise? How did it die?
HERALD.
It likes me not, a day of presage high
With dolorous tongue to stain. Those twain, I vow,
Stand best apart. When one with shuddering brow,
From armies lost, back beareth to his home
Word that the terror of her prayers is come;
One wound in her great heart, and many a fate
For many a home of men cast out to sate
The two-fold scourge that worketh Ares' lust,
Spear crossed with spear, dust wed with bloody dust;
Who walketh laden with such weight of wrong,
Why, let him, if he will, uplift the song
That is Hell's triumph. But to come as I
Am now come, laden with deliverance high,
Home to a land of peace and laughing eyes,
And mar all with that fury of the skies
Which made our Greeks curse God--how should this be?
Two enemies most ancient, Fire and Sea,
A sudden friendship swore, and proved their plight
By war on us poor sailors through that night
Of misery, when the horror of the wave
Towered over us, and winds from Strymon drave
Hull against hull, till good ships, by the horn
Of the mad whirlwind gored and overborne,
One here, one there, 'mid rain and blinding spray,
Like sheep by a devil herded, passed away.
And when the blessed Sun upraised his head,
We saw the Aegean waste a-foam with dead,
Dead men, dead ships, and spars disasterful.
Howbeit for us, our one unwounded hull
Out of that wrath was stolen or begged free
By some good spirit--sure no man was he!--
Who guided clear our helm; and on till now
Hath Saviour Fortune throned her on the prow.
No surge to mar our mooring, and no floor
Of rock to tear us when we made for shore.
Till, fled from that sea-hell, with the clear sun
Above us and all trust in fortune gone,
We drove like sheep about our brain the thoughts
Of that lost army, broken and scourged with knouts
Of evil. And, methinks, if there is breath
In them, they talk of us as gone to death--
How else?--and so say we of them! For thee,
Since Menelaues thy first care must be,
If by some word of Zeus, who wills not yet
To leave the old house for ever desolate,
Some ray of sunlight on a far-off sea
Lights him, yet green and living ... we may see
His ship some day in the harbour!--'Twas the word
Of truth ye asked me for, and truth ye have heard!
[_Exit_ HERALD. _The_ CHORUS _take position for the Third Stasimon_.
CHORUS.
(_Surely there was mystic meaning in the name_ HELENA, _meaning which was
fulfilled when she fled to Troy._)
Who was He who found for thee
That name, truthful utterly--
Was it One beyond our vision
Moving sure in pre-decision
Of man's doom his mystic lips?--
Calling thee, the Battle-wed,
Thee, the Strife-encompassed,
HELEN? Yea, in fate's derision,
Hell in cities, Hell in ships,
Hell in hearts of men they knew her,
When the dim and delicate fold
Of her curtains backward rolled,
And to sea, to sea, she threw her
In the West Wind's giant hold;
And with spear and sword behind her
Came the hunters in a flood,
Down the oarblade's viewless trail
Tracking, till in Simois' vale
Through the leaves they crept to find her,
A Wrath, a seed of blood.
(_The Trojans welcomed her with triumph and praised Alexander till at last
their song changed and they saw another meaning in Alexander's name
also._)
So the Name to Ilion came
On God's thought-fulfilling flame,
She a vengeance and a token
Of the unfaith to bread broken,
Of the hearth of God betrayed,
Against them whose voices swelled
Glorying in the prize they held
And the Spoiler's vaunt outspoken
And the song his brethren made
'Mid the bridal torches burning;
Till, behold, the ancient City
Of King Priam turned, and turning
Took a new song for her learning,
A song changed and full of pity,
With the cry of a lost nation;
And she changed the bridegroom's name:
Called him Paris Ghastly-wed;
For her sons were with the dead,
And her life one lamentation,
'Mid blood and burning flame.
(_Like a lion's whelp reared as a pet and turning afterwards to a great
beast of prey,_)
Lo, once there was a herdsman reared
In his own house, so stories tell,
A lion's whelp, a milk-fed thing
And soft in life's first opening
Among the sucklings of the herd;
The happy children loved him well,
And old men smiled, and oft, they say,
In men's arms, like a babe, he lay,
Bright-eyed, and toward the hand that teased him
Eagerly fawning for food or play.
Then on a day outflashed the sudden
Rage of the lion brood of yore;
He paid his debt to them that fed
With wrack of herds and carnage red,
Yea, wrought him a great feast unbidden,
Till all the house-ways ran with gore;
A sight the thralls fled weeping from,
A great red slayer, beard a-foam,
High-priest of some blood-cursed altar
God had uplifted against that home.
(_So was it with Helen in Troy._)
And how shall I call the thing that came
At the first hour to Ilion city?
Call it a dream of peace untold,
A secret joy in a mist of gold,
A woman's eye that was soft, like flame,
A flower which ate a man's heart with pity.